Hello Everyone
How does an unknown drugstore in a tiny locale become the number one roadside attraction in the nation? Through love, dedication, and creativity. That’s the story of Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota now operated by the third and fourth generations, Rick Hustead and his daughter, Sarah.
STARTS WITH ICE WATER
Ted Hustead graduated at the top of his class from pharmacy school at the University of Nebraska in 1929 and worked two years for other druggists. In 1931, upon inheriting $3,000 from his father, Ted and his wife, Dorothy, a former teacher from Colman, South Dakota, decided it was time to start their own drugstore. Living in Canova, South Dakota, they started a search for a new locale covering Nebraska and South Dakota. They had two requirements. It had to be a small town and have a Catholic Church so they could attend mass daily. They talked to Wall’s priest, doctor, and banker, who told them Wall was a good place with good people. They wanted the Husteads to come and live there.
In December 1931, they moved with their four-year-old son Billy to the tiny town of Wall, population 326. It was a desolate place whose residents and the surrounding farming community had fallen into the pit of poverty due to the Depression and a severe drought. Dorothy’s father referred to it as “Just about as Godforsaken as you can get.”
Wall was originally platted as a railroad town in 1907 when the Chicago/Northwestern Railroad extended to that area. It was a stopover for passengers to visit the nearby Badlands.
The Husteads set up shop in a 24-by-60 storefront, living in the back 20 feet of the store. They separated their living quarters from the pharmacy by a red curtain. Their store was located across the street from the present Wall Drug.
Ted and Dorothy decided to give Wall five years to see if it was the place for them. If it wasn’t, other plans would have to be made. Dorothy pointed out they didn’t need to worry since the monument at Mount Rushmore would soon be completed, providing a steady stream of traffic.
In Ted Hustead’s biography, he wrote, “Filling prescriptions for a sick child or an ailing farmer made me feel that I was doing something good. I also studied some veterinary medicine on my own so that I could help out farmers when their stocks were ill. But all of this didn’t seem to be enough. I still spent too many hours looking out the store window waiting for customers who never showed up.”
The Hustead’s five year trial would be up in December 1936. To make it more difficult, the Husteads now had a baby daughter, Mary Elizabeth.
One day Dorothy chose to go home since she wasn’t needed at the store. She decided to take a nap with her children. An hour later, she returned. It wasn’t the heat that had disturbed her rest. It was because of all the jalopies going by on Route 16A.
She said to Ted that she had an idea to attract people to their store. “Now what is it those travelers really want after driving across the hot prairie? They’re thirsty. They want water. Ice cold water! Now we’ve got plenty of ice and water. Why don’t we put up signs on the highway telling people to come here for free ice water?”
Dorothy had even made up a few lines. “Get a soda...Get a beer...turn next corner...Just as near... To Highway 16 and 14 ... Free Ice Water...Wall Drug.”
During the next few days, Ted and a high school student made some signs modeled after the Burma Shave highway signs. The next weekend, they went out to place them. When Ted returned, 30 people were already standing in front of his pharmacy for their ice water. They were also buying coffee, ice cream, snacks, and sodas.
MORE SIGNS MEAN MORE BUSINESS
Soon 20 or 30 signs were added along the highway. The next summer they had to hire eight girls to help them out. Before long, signs stretched from Minnesota to Billings, Montana. At its peak in the 1960's, Wall Drug had over 400 highway signs.
On a trip to London, Ted erected a sign saying Wall Drug was only 5,160 miles away. He awarded those who wrote to the Husteads with information about South Dakota, the nearby Badlands, and Wall Drug. The family received a dozen or two letters to the store daily. As a result of Ted’s interview with the BBC, another advertising phenomenon started - worldwide signs. This included paying for advertising in Amsterdam, Paris, and London.
Signs now cover the globe indicating the direction and distance to Wall Drugs. These stretch from Kenya to Antarctica. In Europe during World War II, South Dakota soldiers posed for photos by posted handmade Wall Drug signs indicating the distance to Wall Drug. They did the same in Korea, Viet Nam, and during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. One was even posted at the South Pole by an expedition member who declared Wall Drug as being 9,333 miles from there.
With increased signs, the business grew allowing the Husteads to upgrade to a 1,500 square foot storefront and then a 3,000 square foot storefront. Ted moved the store to its present location in 1942. However, it continued to be only a small pharmacy, snack shop, and souvenir store until Ted’s son, Bill, after obtaining his pharmacy degree in 1951, took over the business.
“When dad finished his 48-year career, Wall Drug was 76,000 square feet and that square footage is where we are at still today. He had a lot of drive and was the visionary builder of Wall Drug as you see it today,” said Rick Hustead, Bill’s son.
In 1954, Wall Drug added a Western-style clothing store. A self-service café arrived in 1956. By 1983, the business had a restaurant with four dining rooms, an apothecary, an art gallery, a jewelry shop, a souvenir stand, a bookstore, a shoe store selling cowboy boots and Indian-made moccasins, and an outfitting shop offering backpacking equipment.
“I was embarrassed when I was in high school,” Bill said in The Wall Drug Story. “All those signs, and when you arrived, it was just an ordinary small town store. It was my crusade to develop the store into something special.”
Throughout the 1980s, Wall Drug achieved much acclaim in such publications as Time, Guideposts, USA Today, People and other magazines and newspapers. It was also featured on the Today Show.
According to Encyclopedia.com “The company continued to do what it did best- promote small town America and celebrate the enterprising nature of its owners in the face of adversity. The drugstore became identified as a cultural icon, a pharmaceutical “little engine” that could. America was losing its small towns and main streets to big cities, suburbs, and shopping malls. Wall Drug celebrated the small western town to the extreme.”
Ted Hustead died in 1999. That same year, Bill Hustead died of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Until 2013, Bill’s sons, Ted and Rick, ran Wall Drug together.
Rick is now Chairman of Wall Drug while his daughter, Sarah Hustead, is the store manager. Rick’s wife Patt works daily at the store. She supervises and runs the Camp and Trail Outfitters department. According to Rick, she is their best retail pricing advisor. She does their Wall Drug sale tables in the fall, spring, and winter each year. “Those items are extremely popular with our staff and our local and traveling customers,” said Rick.
WALL DRUG TODAY
Today Wall is still a tiny community - less than 1,000 in population with Wall Drug being its principal industry. The Wall community has always been a vital part of the Husteads’ lives. Ted served for 39 years on the Wall City Council with Bill on it for 26 years. Rick is in his 23rd year on the Council.
In the summer, the company hires 200 employees. In season, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Wall Drug attracts around 20,000 visitors with close to two million people making stops during the year.
Hundreds of signs line the east-west approaches of Interstate 90 advertising free ice water, five cent coffee, and Wall Drug’s many products ranging from boots to books to Black Hills jewelry. Three hundred of these are in South Dakota with 30 in Wyoming and two in Minnesota. Yes, there is still a pharmacy, but it is now also a museum.
PLACES TO EAT
If you are searching for a place to eat, Western Art Gallery Dining Rooms, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, has space for 500 diners. For breakfast, you might want to try one of their homemade doughnuts for which Wall Drug has become famous. These come in plain, chocolate, maple, and vanilla. You can pair that with their five-cent coffee or free ice water. For something more substantial, they offer hot cakes, french toast, eggs, and more.
Lunch and dinner menus are the same. According to Sarah, the hot roast beef dinners and bison burgers are the most popular. However, they also offer regular burgers, hot dogs, baked ham dinner, barbecue combos, and various sandwiches.
They have a kids’ menu. Bill added a wine list as he felt that would add class to their dining.
The Hustead family has collected artwork for more than 50 years. With more than 300 original oil paintings lining its walls, the rooms house the largest private collection of original western and illustrative art in the country. Placed around the room are works by such notable artists as NC Wyeth, Harvey Dunn, Dean Cornwell, Benton Clark, Matt Clark, Gutzon Borglum, Oscar Howe, Harold von Schmidt, Morton Stoops, Will James, and Frank McCarthy.
Artist Ken Vance, a totem pole carver from Louisville, Ohio, created the rooms’ major sculptures. It started when Ken told Ted that Wall Drug needed a totem pole. That situation was promptly corrected with Wall Drug getting its own pole. A few years later, Ken carved the likenesses of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid into a 187-year-old Montana cedar tree, standing in the middle of the Art Gallery café. These proved so popular that the Husteads decided they wanted more sculptures.
They asked Harold Shunk, a Sioux Indian who grew up in south-central South Dakota, to name the four greatest Indian chiefs. Shunk suggested - Gall, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, and Spotted Tail. In 1974, Vance carved the chiefs from Montana cedar logs from178-year-old trees. Located in the adjoining dining room, they’re among the most photographed works in Wall Drug.
When the United States Air Force was still maintaining Minutemen missile silos in the Badlands, Wall Drug offered free coffee and doughnuts to service personnel who stopped in on their way to and from Ellsworth Air Force Base. It still offers free coffee and doughnuts to active military personnel and military veterans.
There are other choices for food. Wall Drug has an ice cream and soda fountain where you can purchase hard and soft ice cream creations. The Prairie Parlor in their Backyard is a good choice for hot dogs and slices of pizza.
SHOPPING
At Wall Drug’s Frontier Town, you get the feel of walking down Main Street of an enclosed western town with 12 shops. Look for the cowboy mannequins standing around or sitting on a park bench. A wooden Annie Oakley joins them. They’re perfect for taking photographs with.
Stop at the animated fortune teller or have a penny flattened with the Wall Drug symbol on it. Even the materials for the buildings characterize the scene. Constructed in the mid 1970s, they’re composed of native lumber and old brick while the walkway consists of Cheyenne River rock.
Nine other stores exist besides Frontier Town. The three largest areas are devoted to T-shirts, souvenirs of all types, and their emporium which sells primarily gifts and is the home of their doughnut factory. At the souvenir department, you’ll find animatronic creations. Don’t miss Wall Drug’s “Chuck Wagon Quartette” singing Tumbling Tumbleweeds every 20 minutes. It was part of a Christmas on the Range display at Mays department store in Denver. Sam Johnson, the Wall barber, spotted it in the department store window in 1952 and told Ted about it. Ted immediately went to Denver and purchased it from the store manager. It has been a hit ever since.
The “Cowboy Orchestra” should also be checked out. Ted and Bill learned about it from a salesman who knew of someone in Lakeside, Montana who made animated carvings like cowboy bands. Ted traveled to Montana and requested the Montanan to create a chuckwagon quartet of four cowboys. They have had a rough day on the range and have decided to sing a song before their dinner.
The Hole in the Wall Bookstore is comprehensive ranging from books on western history and culture to cookbooks and ones for children. Calamity Jane’s Jewelry Emporium features Black Hills Gold, a specialized jewelry manufactured by Landstroms in Rapid City. It also sells authentic turquoise jewelry handcrafted by Native Americans.
Buckboard Western Apparel department and interconnected shops, such as Minnetonka Moccasins, carry a wide variety of moccasins, western apparel, belts, and even gun holsters. They also carry 6,000 pairs of boots in 250 different styles. No, that is not a typo.
The Rock Hound shop offers fossils and crystals as well as anything you might need to do your own rockhounding. At Camp & Trail Outfitters, campers will find everything they require to make life easier in the outdoors.
At the Apothecary Shoppe and Museum, you can still have prescriptions filled. I found it a great resource when I needed a recommendation for a doctor. Its museum is a replica of the 1931 store housing pharmaceutical artifacts and century old apothecary lines. Look for the skeleton hanging in the store.
Across from it are the Print and Poster Shop and Pottery and Iron Shed. At the Country Store, you’ll find homemade fudge. Tucked between the stores if you venture down the alleyways you’ll find walls loaded with historical photos, family photographs, hunters’ mounts, Native American artifacts, and historical items.
The hunter mounts have a history of their own. Paul Giesel of Clear Lake, South Dakota telephoned Bill and Ted. He had hunted all over the world and amassed a large collection of mounted trophies. Philip taxidermist Marty Hanson drove to Clear Lake and advised the Husteads they were in excellent condition. They’re featured today in a main corridor of the store.
Wall Drug even has a Travelers Chapel which is ideal for solitude and was a former site for weddings. It’s modeled after the New Melleray Abbey near Dubuque, Iowa chapel built by Trappist monks in the 1850s. An axe shaped its beams. Its stained glass windows came from a Pierre, South Dakota church built more than a hundred years ago.
THE BACKYARD
During the summer, for family entertainment and wonderful photo opportunities, head for Wall Drug’s backyard. This 14,000 square foot area opened in the years 1995-1996. It is the home of a six-foot rabbit on wheels. You can climb onto the saddle of a giant fiberglass jackalope or sit on the buckin’ bronc, explore a covered wagon, and admire the reproduction of Mount Rushmore’s monument.
At the Jumping Jets Water Show, kids can burn off energy as they avoid the jets of water popping up from the ground. It’s located next to the Old West railroad station. Adults can peek into a heated poker game between Wild Bill Hickok and Doc Holliday and examine 1,400 photos of South Dakota from the 1870s through the 1930s. All will enjoy the Tyrannosaurus Rex that roars to life every 12 minutes. It guards a long hallway displaying Wall Drug’s many framed awards and press clippings.
Talking about dinosaurs, you won’t want to miss the 80-foot brontosaurus sculpture that guards I-90 beckoning you to visit Wall Drug. It was designed by Emmet Sullivan who created dinosaurs at Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, South Dakota.
In the Backyard, visitors also have some historical Native American items. Mr. and Mrs. Bernie Webb approached Ted. They had explored 17th century Arikara Indian village sites along the Missouri River and had found tools, weapons, utensils, and implements which they wanted to share with others. The village sites have since been flooded by the Missouri River Dams. However, the Webb collection of stone and bone Arikara artifacts found a home at the Skinny Saloon which is an extension of the Prairie Pizza Parlor.
You’ll find shops here, too: the Mining Company, which is a paleontology store, and Little Britches Emporium. Mining Company is the place for kids to pan for gold or gemstones at the sluice or dig for fossils. The Branding Iron Arcade is the home of their shooting gallery.
SUMMARY
From a small drugstore, it has become a cowboy-themed shopping mall with numerous eating places, a variety of shops, a western art museum, a chapel, and entertainment for the entire family. Besides free ice water and five-cent coffee, Wall Drug also offers free bumper stickers with such sayings as “Where the heck is Wall Drug?” Now many people know.
Wall Drug is located at 510 Main Street in Wall, South Dakota. You can telephone them at (605) 279-2175. Admission is always free. Summer hours at the main store are open daily from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. The Café is open daily 7:00 a.m. to 8:15 p.m. Mall shops are open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. The drugstore is open 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Friday. Note that the Backyard is closed during the winter. Check the website for hours during the rest of the year.
FREE NOTIFICATION SERVICE
If you want to be notified of new articles, go to the Contact Form on this web site. To sign up, it’s required to provide your NAME, CITY, and STATE along with your request. Personal information and emails are never given out and there is no charge for this service.
How does an unknown drugstore in a tiny locale become the number one roadside attraction in the nation? Through love, dedication, and creativity. That’s the story of Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota now operated by the third and fourth generations, Rick Hustead and his daughter, Sarah.
STARTS WITH ICE WATER
Ted Hustead graduated at the top of his class from pharmacy school at the University of Nebraska in 1929 and worked two years for other druggists. In 1931, upon inheriting $3,000 from his father, Ted and his wife, Dorothy, a former teacher from Colman, South Dakota, decided it was time to start their own drugstore. Living in Canova, South Dakota, they started a search for a new locale covering Nebraska and South Dakota. They had two requirements. It had to be a small town and have a Catholic Church so they could attend mass daily. They talked to Wall’s priest, doctor, and banker, who told them Wall was a good place with good people. They wanted the Husteads to come and live there.
In December 1931, they moved with their four-year-old son Billy to the tiny town of Wall, population 326. It was a desolate place whose residents and the surrounding farming community had fallen into the pit of poverty due to the Depression and a severe drought. Dorothy’s father referred to it as “Just about as Godforsaken as you can get.”
Wall was originally platted as a railroad town in 1907 when the Chicago/Northwestern Railroad extended to that area. It was a stopover for passengers to visit the nearby Badlands.
The Husteads set up shop in a 24-by-60 storefront, living in the back 20 feet of the store. They separated their living quarters from the pharmacy by a red curtain. Their store was located across the street from the present Wall Drug.
Ted and Dorothy decided to give Wall five years to see if it was the place for them. If it wasn’t, other plans would have to be made. Dorothy pointed out they didn’t need to worry since the monument at Mount Rushmore would soon be completed, providing a steady stream of traffic.
In Ted Hustead’s biography, he wrote, “Filling prescriptions for a sick child or an ailing farmer made me feel that I was doing something good. I also studied some veterinary medicine on my own so that I could help out farmers when their stocks were ill. But all of this didn’t seem to be enough. I still spent too many hours looking out the store window waiting for customers who never showed up.”
The Hustead’s five year trial would be up in December 1936. To make it more difficult, the Husteads now had a baby daughter, Mary Elizabeth.
One day Dorothy chose to go home since she wasn’t needed at the store. She decided to take a nap with her children. An hour later, she returned. It wasn’t the heat that had disturbed her rest. It was because of all the jalopies going by on Route 16A.
She said to Ted that she had an idea to attract people to their store. “Now what is it those travelers really want after driving across the hot prairie? They’re thirsty. They want water. Ice cold water! Now we’ve got plenty of ice and water. Why don’t we put up signs on the highway telling people to come here for free ice water?”
Dorothy had even made up a few lines. “Get a soda...Get a beer...turn next corner...Just as near... To Highway 16 and 14 ... Free Ice Water...Wall Drug.”
During the next few days, Ted and a high school student made some signs modeled after the Burma Shave highway signs. The next weekend, they went out to place them. When Ted returned, 30 people were already standing in front of his pharmacy for their ice water. They were also buying coffee, ice cream, snacks, and sodas.
MORE SIGNS MEAN MORE BUSINESS
Soon 20 or 30 signs were added along the highway. The next summer they had to hire eight girls to help them out. Before long, signs stretched from Minnesota to Billings, Montana. At its peak in the 1960's, Wall Drug had over 400 highway signs.
On a trip to London, Ted erected a sign saying Wall Drug was only 5,160 miles away. He awarded those who wrote to the Husteads with information about South Dakota, the nearby Badlands, and Wall Drug. The family received a dozen or two letters to the store daily. As a result of Ted’s interview with the BBC, another advertising phenomenon started - worldwide signs. This included paying for advertising in Amsterdam, Paris, and London.
Signs now cover the globe indicating the direction and distance to Wall Drugs. These stretch from Kenya to Antarctica. In Europe during World War II, South Dakota soldiers posed for photos by posted handmade Wall Drug signs indicating the distance to Wall Drug. They did the same in Korea, Viet Nam, and during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. One was even posted at the South Pole by an expedition member who declared Wall Drug as being 9,333 miles from there.
With increased signs, the business grew allowing the Husteads to upgrade to a 1,500 square foot storefront and then a 3,000 square foot storefront. Ted moved the store to its present location in 1942. However, it continued to be only a small pharmacy, snack shop, and souvenir store until Ted’s son, Bill, after obtaining his pharmacy degree in 1951, took over the business.
“When dad finished his 48-year career, Wall Drug was 76,000 square feet and that square footage is where we are at still today. He had a lot of drive and was the visionary builder of Wall Drug as you see it today,” said Rick Hustead, Bill’s son.
In 1954, Wall Drug added a Western-style clothing store. A self-service café arrived in 1956. By 1983, the business had a restaurant with four dining rooms, an apothecary, an art gallery, a jewelry shop, a souvenir stand, a bookstore, a shoe store selling cowboy boots and Indian-made moccasins, and an outfitting shop offering backpacking equipment.
“I was embarrassed when I was in high school,” Bill said in The Wall Drug Story. “All those signs, and when you arrived, it was just an ordinary small town store. It was my crusade to develop the store into something special.”
Throughout the 1980s, Wall Drug achieved much acclaim in such publications as Time, Guideposts, USA Today, People and other magazines and newspapers. It was also featured on the Today Show.
According to Encyclopedia.com “The company continued to do what it did best- promote small town America and celebrate the enterprising nature of its owners in the face of adversity. The drugstore became identified as a cultural icon, a pharmaceutical “little engine” that could. America was losing its small towns and main streets to big cities, suburbs, and shopping malls. Wall Drug celebrated the small western town to the extreme.”
Ted Hustead died in 1999. That same year, Bill Hustead died of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Until 2013, Bill’s sons, Ted and Rick, ran Wall Drug together.
Rick is now Chairman of Wall Drug while his daughter, Sarah Hustead, is the store manager. Rick’s wife Patt works daily at the store. She supervises and runs the Camp and Trail Outfitters department. According to Rick, she is their best retail pricing advisor. She does their Wall Drug sale tables in the fall, spring, and winter each year. “Those items are extremely popular with our staff and our local and traveling customers,” said Rick.
WALL DRUG TODAY
Today Wall is still a tiny community - less than 1,000 in population with Wall Drug being its principal industry. The Wall community has always been a vital part of the Husteads’ lives. Ted served for 39 years on the Wall City Council with Bill on it for 26 years. Rick is in his 23rd year on the Council.
In the summer, the company hires 200 employees. In season, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, Wall Drug attracts around 20,000 visitors with close to two million people making stops during the year.
Hundreds of signs line the east-west approaches of Interstate 90 advertising free ice water, five cent coffee, and Wall Drug’s many products ranging from boots to books to Black Hills jewelry. Three hundred of these are in South Dakota with 30 in Wyoming and two in Minnesota. Yes, there is still a pharmacy, but it is now also a museum.
PLACES TO EAT
If you are searching for a place to eat, Western Art Gallery Dining Rooms, serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, has space for 500 diners. For breakfast, you might want to try one of their homemade doughnuts for which Wall Drug has become famous. These come in plain, chocolate, maple, and vanilla. You can pair that with their five-cent coffee or free ice water. For something more substantial, they offer hot cakes, french toast, eggs, and more.
Lunch and dinner menus are the same. According to Sarah, the hot roast beef dinners and bison burgers are the most popular. However, they also offer regular burgers, hot dogs, baked ham dinner, barbecue combos, and various sandwiches.
They have a kids’ menu. Bill added a wine list as he felt that would add class to their dining.
The Hustead family has collected artwork for more than 50 years. With more than 300 original oil paintings lining its walls, the rooms house the largest private collection of original western and illustrative art in the country. Placed around the room are works by such notable artists as NC Wyeth, Harvey Dunn, Dean Cornwell, Benton Clark, Matt Clark, Gutzon Borglum, Oscar Howe, Harold von Schmidt, Morton Stoops, Will James, and Frank McCarthy.
Artist Ken Vance, a totem pole carver from Louisville, Ohio, created the rooms’ major sculptures. It started when Ken told Ted that Wall Drug needed a totem pole. That situation was promptly corrected with Wall Drug getting its own pole. A few years later, Ken carved the likenesses of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid into a 187-year-old Montana cedar tree, standing in the middle of the Art Gallery café. These proved so popular that the Husteads decided they wanted more sculptures.
They asked Harold Shunk, a Sioux Indian who grew up in south-central South Dakota, to name the four greatest Indian chiefs. Shunk suggested - Gall, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, and Spotted Tail. In 1974, Vance carved the chiefs from Montana cedar logs from178-year-old trees. Located in the adjoining dining room, they’re among the most photographed works in Wall Drug.
When the United States Air Force was still maintaining Minutemen missile silos in the Badlands, Wall Drug offered free coffee and doughnuts to service personnel who stopped in on their way to and from Ellsworth Air Force Base. It still offers free coffee and doughnuts to active military personnel and military veterans.
There are other choices for food. Wall Drug has an ice cream and soda fountain where you can purchase hard and soft ice cream creations. The Prairie Parlor in their Backyard is a good choice for hot dogs and slices of pizza.
SHOPPING
At Wall Drug’s Frontier Town, you get the feel of walking down Main Street of an enclosed western town with 12 shops. Look for the cowboy mannequins standing around or sitting on a park bench. A wooden Annie Oakley joins them. They’re perfect for taking photographs with.
Stop at the animated fortune teller or have a penny flattened with the Wall Drug symbol on it. Even the materials for the buildings characterize the scene. Constructed in the mid 1970s, they’re composed of native lumber and old brick while the walkway consists of Cheyenne River rock.
Nine other stores exist besides Frontier Town. The three largest areas are devoted to T-shirts, souvenirs of all types, and their emporium which sells primarily gifts and is the home of their doughnut factory. At the souvenir department, you’ll find animatronic creations. Don’t miss Wall Drug’s “Chuck Wagon Quartette” singing Tumbling Tumbleweeds every 20 minutes. It was part of a Christmas on the Range display at Mays department store in Denver. Sam Johnson, the Wall barber, spotted it in the department store window in 1952 and told Ted about it. Ted immediately went to Denver and purchased it from the store manager. It has been a hit ever since.
The “Cowboy Orchestra” should also be checked out. Ted and Bill learned about it from a salesman who knew of someone in Lakeside, Montana who made animated carvings like cowboy bands. Ted traveled to Montana and requested the Montanan to create a chuckwagon quartet of four cowboys. They have had a rough day on the range and have decided to sing a song before their dinner.
The Hole in the Wall Bookstore is comprehensive ranging from books on western history and culture to cookbooks and ones for children. Calamity Jane’s Jewelry Emporium features Black Hills Gold, a specialized jewelry manufactured by Landstroms in Rapid City. It also sells authentic turquoise jewelry handcrafted by Native Americans.
Buckboard Western Apparel department and interconnected shops, such as Minnetonka Moccasins, carry a wide variety of moccasins, western apparel, belts, and even gun holsters. They also carry 6,000 pairs of boots in 250 different styles. No, that is not a typo.
The Rock Hound shop offers fossils and crystals as well as anything you might need to do your own rockhounding. At Camp & Trail Outfitters, campers will find everything they require to make life easier in the outdoors.
At the Apothecary Shoppe and Museum, you can still have prescriptions filled. I found it a great resource when I needed a recommendation for a doctor. Its museum is a replica of the 1931 store housing pharmaceutical artifacts and century old apothecary lines. Look for the skeleton hanging in the store.
Across from it are the Print and Poster Shop and Pottery and Iron Shed. At the Country Store, you’ll find homemade fudge. Tucked between the stores if you venture down the alleyways you’ll find walls loaded with historical photos, family photographs, hunters’ mounts, Native American artifacts, and historical items.
The hunter mounts have a history of their own. Paul Giesel of Clear Lake, South Dakota telephoned Bill and Ted. He had hunted all over the world and amassed a large collection of mounted trophies. Philip taxidermist Marty Hanson drove to Clear Lake and advised the Husteads they were in excellent condition. They’re featured today in a main corridor of the store.
Wall Drug even has a Travelers Chapel which is ideal for solitude and was a former site for weddings. It’s modeled after the New Melleray Abbey near Dubuque, Iowa chapel built by Trappist monks in the 1850s. An axe shaped its beams. Its stained glass windows came from a Pierre, South Dakota church built more than a hundred years ago.
THE BACKYARD
During the summer, for family entertainment and wonderful photo opportunities, head for Wall Drug’s backyard. This 14,000 square foot area opened in the years 1995-1996. It is the home of a six-foot rabbit on wheels. You can climb onto the saddle of a giant fiberglass jackalope or sit on the buckin’ bronc, explore a covered wagon, and admire the reproduction of Mount Rushmore’s monument.
At the Jumping Jets Water Show, kids can burn off energy as they avoid the jets of water popping up from the ground. It’s located next to the Old West railroad station. Adults can peek into a heated poker game between Wild Bill Hickok and Doc Holliday and examine 1,400 photos of South Dakota from the 1870s through the 1930s. All will enjoy the Tyrannosaurus Rex that roars to life every 12 minutes. It guards a long hallway displaying Wall Drug’s many framed awards and press clippings.
Talking about dinosaurs, you won’t want to miss the 80-foot brontosaurus sculpture that guards I-90 beckoning you to visit Wall Drug. It was designed by Emmet Sullivan who created dinosaurs at Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, South Dakota.
In the Backyard, visitors also have some historical Native American items. Mr. and Mrs. Bernie Webb approached Ted. They had explored 17th century Arikara Indian village sites along the Missouri River and had found tools, weapons, utensils, and implements which they wanted to share with others. The village sites have since been flooded by the Missouri River Dams. However, the Webb collection of stone and bone Arikara artifacts found a home at the Skinny Saloon which is an extension of the Prairie Pizza Parlor.
You’ll find shops here, too: the Mining Company, which is a paleontology store, and Little Britches Emporium. Mining Company is the place for kids to pan for gold or gemstones at the sluice or dig for fossils. The Branding Iron Arcade is the home of their shooting gallery.
SUMMARY
From a small drugstore, it has become a cowboy-themed shopping mall with numerous eating places, a variety of shops, a western art museum, a chapel, and entertainment for the entire family. Besides free ice water and five-cent coffee, Wall Drug also offers free bumper stickers with such sayings as “Where the heck is Wall Drug?” Now many people know.
Wall Drug is located at 510 Main Street in Wall, South Dakota. You can telephone them at (605) 279-2175. Admission is always free. Summer hours at the main store are open daily from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. The Café is open daily 7:00 a.m. to 8:15 p.m. Mall shops are open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. The drugstore is open 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Friday. Note that the Backyard is closed during the winter. Check the website for hours during the rest of the year.
FREE NOTIFICATION SERVICE
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How It All Started
A Tradition Maintained Today
Perfect Reason to Stop at Wall Drug - Great Shops
Getting Close to Wall Drug - Be Sure to Stop
Time to Stop
This Dinosaur Greets You from Near the Interstate
Finally Arrived
Rick Hustead, CEO of Wall Drug, and Sarah Hustead, His Daughter Who is Manager
Order Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner or Even Ice Water
One of the Western Art Gallery Dining Rooms
An Oscar Howe Painting - Untitled
N. C. Wyeth's The Devil's Whisper
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Chief Gall Overlooks the Dining Room
Homemade Ice Cream Draws Guests to the Soda Fountain
Even an Old Prospector with His Mule
Join the Cowboy at the Jewelry Emporium
Then Come on in for Some Black Hills Gold Jewelry
The Hole in the Wall Bookstore
The Store That Started It All - Still a Drugstore
Don't Forget the Boots at Buckboard Western Apparel
The Travelers Chapel - Modeled After Melleray Abbey Near DuBuque, Iowa
Visit the Backyard for Some Great Photo Ops
Climb on the Giant Jackalope
Hear the T Rex Roar
Check out the Model of Mount Rushmore
Or Say Hello to Major General George Armstrong Custer
Shop for Your Youngsters at Little Britches Emporium
Try Your Skill at the Shooting Gallery
Finish by Enjoying All the Historical Photos